Mining the moon

Space exploration has long been about reaching far off destinations but now there's a race to exploit new frontiers by mining their minerals.

When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon in 1969, it was part of a "flags and footprints" strategy to beat the Soviets, a triumph of imagination and innovation, not an attempt to extract precious metals.

No-one knew there was water on that dusty, celestial body. What a difference a generation makes.

Mysterious and beautiful, the Moon has been a source of awe and inspiration to mankind for millennia. Now it is the centre of a space race to mine rare minerals to fuel our future - smart phones, space-age solar panels and possibly even a future colony of Earthlings.